So good it makes you want to sing

After running with Dan Lawson on the south-west coast path last weekend, Charlie is moved to write a song

Dan Lawson on the coast path. Photograph: Will Harper-Penrose

Running on the coast path in the hot sun,
Dan Lawson, Law-son.

After my friend Charlie and I ran with Dan Lawson last weekend on Dan’s south-west coast path record attempt, Charlie got so inspired he wrote a song about it. Those, above, are the opening lines - sung to the tune of The Clash’s I Fought The Law (And The Law Won). I’m sure the single will be racing up the charts soon, especially after Dan smashes the record, as he almost certainly will later today.

All week I’ve been amusing myself (as has Charlie, evidently) checking in on Dan’s progress, both on his live tracker and on his Instagram account - which has been managed brilliantly by his wife and crew, Charlotte.

Dan ended up tackling the run in an intense heatwave - a run of 630 miles, with nearly four times the elevation of Everest, remember, not to mention being chased at one point on a massive detour by cows, having to run across sandy beaches, through completely overgrown tracks and having to cross endless river estuaries where he had to hope he had timed it right with the ferries.

Unlike many high-profile FKT attempts, Dan and Charlotte’s planning was real back-of-the-envelope stuff - those of us running sections with him got sent photographs of scraps of paper with rough timings hand-written on them, which all turned out to be wildly wrong. No spreadsheets here. Just relentlessness.

And that is how he did it: unflappable relentlessness. All week, through the blistering heat, we’ve watched along as Charlotte spots him coming along the path, trundling up to her, always in the same calm state, not excited, not flustered, mumbling about needing a drink or being tired, saying hello to his dog, looking more and more tanned each day until it seems impossible to tan any more, and then off again on his merry way.

No spreadsheets, and no professional film crews either; just Charlotte pointing the phone roughly in the right direction while carrying out her crewing duties. But it’s wonderfully revealing footage - we hear the conversations between them, the care Charlotte shows, the connection they have - it’s endearing and heartwarming.

And unflappable. What is so impressive about them is how they remain so fixed on one simple goal: to keep moving. If it was me, passing all those beautiful little bays, people on holiday, I’d be constantly wanting to stop, get an ice-cream, swim in the sea. And I’d be questioning what I was doing running all this way when everyone else was having such a lovely time. But Dan and Charlotte don't flinch. They have a job to do and nothing else is getting a look in.

It is quite emotional watching along today, as he nears the end (as I write this he has about 30 miles left to run). I can imagine that while there have been many difficult moments - and Dan often emerges from a section saying “that was horrible” - when they look back at their lives in years to come, this week in Devon and Cornwall, in this heatwave, will remain forever crystal clear in their memories. It just has that mad feeling of intensity about it - which, in essence, is at the heart of why we run ultra marathons.

It was a privilege to have been able to join him for one small section on day two.

Anyway, back to you, Charlie …

So many hills he must feel so bad,
I’m loving Charlotte’s Instagram,
It’s the fastest run on the south-west coast path,
Dan Lawson, Law-son.

NB. A couple of photographers did catch Dan along the way and got some great shots. Check out their Instagram pages here and here.

***

Meanwhile, in my less-intense running life right now, I was back at parkrun on Saturday. For years I resisted parkruns, except occasionally, because I treated them like races, with a goal, and all the accompanying stresses, excitement etc. But I’ve finally managed to treat them as something somewhere just below a race - a hard, competitive run, one that gets me pushing myself, but where I can take the result with a pinch of salt. No stress. You win some, you lose some.

(I’m quite aware that this is how I probably should approach all races, and maybe I’m getting there, but doing parkruns more regularly definitely helps lessen the pressure somehow.)

And I have to say, I’m totally loving this newfound way of running them. As I’ve mentioned before, many times, I do enjoy running hard and fast. And to get to do that with a huge group of people on a Saturday morning, before breakfast, without too much stress or worry, well, it sets up the weekend beautifully.

This Saturday was my slowest (flat) parkrun of the year. I don’t know why - training has dipped a bit recently, it was a hot day. But it really didn’t matter. I still had that wonderful post-race buzz, made all the better by the fact that we went and jumped in the sea afterwards (it was the Torbay parkrun).

I enjoyed doing it with friends, too. A big, happy running social occasion. What’s not to love?

***

Katie Schide at Hardrock.

Out in the big, wide running world, I didn’t catch much this week, I’m afraid. I saw out of the corner of one eye that Katie Schide set a big course record in the Hardrock 100 and almost ran down Zach Miller at the end, which shows just how strongly she was running - or was Zach having one of his major blow ups? Anyway, that course record belonged to Courtney Dauwalter, and it seems as though Katie could be challenging Courtney for the title of best female ultra runner on the planet right now? The two of them will hopefully go head-to-head at some point soon.

The men’s race, no less inspiringly, was won by Ludovic Pommeret, a French athlete who ran the fifth fastest time ever, and who turns 50 next week. There’s hope for us ageing athletes there.

Elsewhere, this story from Italy tickled me. In the small town of Anghiari in Tuscany, they’ve held a race since 1441 in which runners are allowed to push their rivals off the course along the way. It’s like a cross between running and fighting - though judging by the video, the trick to winning is to avoid the fighting and to just run off really hard. Is there a life lesson in that, I wonder?